Lunchtime Global is located in the First National Building in downtown Detroit. They have a wide selection of soups that changes every day. Since I love soup and trying new foods, I go hear quite often. This is the first soup I have bought from them since I started this blog and it was a good choice. The Cheesy Chicken Casserole soup was Creamy and not overly cheesy. There was just enough cheese to give you the flavor but not thicken the soup too much. The soup then has lots of Rice and Corn. There is also broccoli, celery and a little onion to build the flavor. There was also big chunks of chicken, so you could tell this was a homemade soup. I will be getting this again. Overall, creamy, hearty and great. Worth getting more!

Granite City is located in Troy on Big Beaver Road, right off of 75. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to eat. It is a chain with locations throughout the Northern United States, but they really do things right here. They always have four house brews and usually a couple seasonal brews as well. They have a couple lagers, a stout and a Pale Ale at all times. You can get 2 free beer samples at any time so take advantage of that. I really like the full flavor of the Bennie I had. I also had their Seasonal Blueberry lager, which was alright but really didn't have much flavor. I have been here a few times and have always had good food and service. This time we had about a 20 minute wait for a table, but they will bring you beer or cocktail while you wait which i really appreciated. Also be advised that the portions are big, but I love leftovers so that doesn’t bother me. This time I went with my wife for her birthday dinner.

We started with the spinach artichoke dip. This was great and I highly recommend it. It was creamy and garlicky which we love. There were more artichokes than spinach, which we felt worked well as sometimes the spinach can overwhelm a dip like this. The house made toasted baguette was a perfect dipping vessel for this delicious cheesy dip.

Next I got a cup of soup with my dinner for a little extra. This is a must for me. The Northern Cheddar & Ale soup is soooo good. It is cheesy, creamy and just thick enough. It’s not overly thick, your spoon will not stand up straight in it, but I like that. To thick and I feel like I’m just eating that fake nacho cheese sauce. This is nowhere close to that. The Homemade Rye croutons on top provide just enough crunch and rye flavor that go perfect with the cheddar. You do get a little beer flavor but it is by no means overpowering. Non-beer lovers will love it just as much as beer lovers.

I got the Cajun Pasta. I really enjoyed this dish. It had big chunks of chicken and sausage that really made the dish seem hearty. The meat was tossed with green and red peppers, sautéed onions, penne pasta and a creamy spicy sauce. The vegetables were cut in a shoestring fashion. This had just enough spice. The ration of meat/veggie/pasta I also thought was perfect. With soup and an appetizer already and the dessert I knew we were going to get I saved half of this for leftovers, but it was a great dish.

My wife got the Overlake grilled sandwich. This starts with wheat bread and thick cut deli smoked turkey. It’s then topped with some Smokey bacon, tomato, Monterey Jack Cheese and a garlic aioli that is outstanding (again we love garlic). You get your choice of side, she choose French fries. These were thin cut and salty which was great. This is my wife’s "go to" at Granite City.

To finish the night off we had to get the Deep Dish Chocolate Chip Cookie. This thing is huge and really should be eaten by at least four people. The cookie itself is warm and gooey with lots of chocolate chips. All the chips are very melted. The cookie is topped with a perfectly spherical scoop of vanilla Ice cream which is slowly melting on the warm cookie. Then everything is drizzled with a dlish caramel sauce. To die for, but we could not finish the whole thing with just the two of us.

This I tried while on our brewery tour across Michigan and was one of the best appitizers we had all weekend. Arcadia Ales is located in Battle Creek, MI and is a small town, bu has a nice downtown strip. The Brewerey itself is actually pretty large compared to the other breweires we visited. It has teh bar and restaurant area and the actual brewing area seperated by large windows so you can still see the all the action as you eat. you defiently can still smell that distinct brewery smell. Side note they have the biggest bathroom I have ever scene. Back on topic, the Bacon Wrapped Dates are worth the drive.

I have made a version of this appetizer but this takes it to the next level. They stuff here dates with sirachi cream cheese and then wrap them in a smoke bacon and serve them with a side of Honey Worchester sauce. The elemts that reall stepped his up was teh sirachi cream cheese. It adds just a little bit of spice, not overpowering at all, which sirachi can be sometimes. It also is warm and creamy since everyhing is baked together. The kick from the siriacha goes great with the slight sweetness of the date and saltyness of the bacon. I also really liked the Hone worchester sauce. I like worchested sauce to begin with. Now his adds a little honey to it which i really enjoyed. It is a sweet and salty sauce, very liquidy, that mimics the sweet and salty of the date and bacon combo. All the spicy, sweet, and salty flavors really combine great with this and I will for sure be making my own.

The way I have made these in teh past is by stuffing the date with goat cheese and a single almond (thanks Dave, http://www.palehorsebrewery.com/). I may try to add sirachi to he goat cheese and add an extra flavor layer.

Here is the 3rd edition of the Comerica Park Hot Dog series. I'll have to thank my brother for letting me try this one during our Mother’s day outing with our mom to Comerica Park. I will say, just like my last post, this was premade and would have been better if they made it fresh. That being said this is a very close second to the poutine dog. Again this starts with the classic ball park dog and bun. It’s then topped with helping of baked beans. Tastes like your standard "talking dog" canned beans. The beans added just enough sweet and smokey flavor to the dog. These were clearly added when they were hot because the cheese that is then put over the beans was melted for the most part. After the cheese comes a hefty load of the same bacon bits just like the late night dog. Again I applaud the large quantity and quality of the bacon. This dog really worked for me and my brother. The baked beans was a little like the chili on a classic Coney dog.

This post is short and sweet. Overall good. The Pork and Beans dog shared the concept from a Coney dog and flavors blended well. This ranks second to the poutine dog. The Slaw Dog is the final Hot dog in this series that I need to try. Looks like I have tickets to a Tigers game Memorial Day weekend, so look for the final review sometime after memorial day.

Here is the second edition of the Comerica Park hot dog series. The late night dog refers to going to your favorite greasy breakfast place after a long night of substance abuse. It takes your classic ball park dog tops it with a fried egg and then gets smothered with bacon bits and cheddar cheese.

When I ordered the poutine dog they made it right in front of me, I believe this was because it was a Wednesday night game, on a rainy day. I would say the park was one third full. When I ordered the late night dog it was Sunday, Mother's day and a sellout. So they had about three of each specialty dogs already made just sitting out. This did not help this dog. The dog itself was still warm but the egg and toppings were cold. Don’t get me wrong, the combination of egg, cheese and bacon always taste good, but this was poorly executed. It starts with the cold, over hard egg. It would have been nice to have a little bit of a runny yoke to add a kind of sauce to the dog, but this egg was over cooked. Second, I wish the cheese would have been melted a little more. It seemed like it was put on top of the cold egg and then topped with the cold bacon bits. I do give them credit for not skimping on the bacon and they were great tasting bacon bits. However, that does not cover up the mistakes with the egg and cheese. I do feel if you get this on a less busy day where they have the time to make it right in front of you this dog would be much better.

Overall this dog could be worse and it could be better. If the Tigers keep winning the crowds won’t get any smaller and the freshly made gourmet dogs will be a rare occurrence.

Early this year they announced four new hot dogs that would be served at Comerica Park. Wednesday was my first chance to attend a Tigers game this year. I was excited to see the new team and the new bar located in right field. But most of all I was excited to try the Poutine Hot Dog. I will eventually try the rest before the season is over, so consider this round one. At $7 the Poutine Hot Dog is only a few bucks more than the Hebrew National dogs that start at $5. You can only pick these up and the "Chicago Style" Hot dog stand in the Tigers carousel area. I walked right up when many of the other concession areas had long lines. This starts with the standard ballpark dog and bun. First it’s topped with a small hand full of french fries. The fries are thick cut fries with a little bit of seasoning. Next comes the cheese curds. These had lots of seasoning and reminded me of Muenster with a little spice. After the curds are added they top the whole thing off with some thick brown gravy. It all comes together well with the snap from the dog and crispiness from the fries combining with the smooth cheese and gravy. It truly is a poutine hot dog (thank you Canada). This is a very messy endeavor and probably should be eaten with a fork and knife, however you are at a baseball game so you have to just pick it up and bite in. You won’t want to put it down so only one napkin will be needed to clean yourself up afterwards. Overall I approve. I will be getting this again but I have to try the other new dogs first, these include the slaw dog, the pork beans dog and the late night dog (which has a fried egg and bacon on it). Thanks for reading and I look forward to keeping you updated on the dogs.

Sundance Grill & Bar was the last stop on our Michigan brewery tour. It was not on the list and is not a brewery, however after a long, long night in Grand Rapids we needed a hearty breakfast. Sundance Grill & Bar was recommend to us by some friends. Their specialty is Mexican breakfast. Breakfast burritos, tacos and even nachos. The theme of this post is "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"

Well let’s start with the good, the BLT Bloody Mary "Spicy." Now I love Bloody Marys. I even use to ask for just blood Mary mix when I was flying as a child. I think that stems from seeing my parents, aunt/uncle and grandparents have a bloody Mary every Christmas morning while we opened presents. Sorry I have gotten off topic. The BLT Bloody Mary is really a light breakfast in itself. As you can see from the picture they serve this BM with some flair. It comes in a fairly large glass (looked like a Stella Artois glass) with a good amount of Ice, but still enough bloody Mary so you’re not done in two sips. Sundance puts 1 LARGE leaf of lettuce in the BM which forms a cone around the other extras. In center of the lettuce sits three crispy strips of bacon and a large tomato slice. Now comes the part that I have never seen before but is really pure genius. Sundance serves the BM with a piece of toast, a little mayo and a shorty of beer. I have no clue what beer it was, but by the end of this craft beer trip any light beer tasted so refreshing I didn’t care. So, I took all the ingredients and made myself a half BLT and sipped my BM and beer before my breakfast. The Bloody Mary itself was spicy as I asked for. It also had sort of taco meat flavor, which was unique. Not my favorite BM I have ever had, but the BLT concept was great and I will be doing this at a brunch party in the near future.

Now that I have talked about the good lets continue on to the bad. This was really disappointing. I am talking about the breakfast nachos. Now I love mixing breakfast with Mexican (see Taco Bell Breakfast post) but they really missed the mark on this. First I will preface this by saying I believe my nachos were sitting in the kitchen for a good 10 minutes. I could tell because everyone else got there food 10 minutes before me and the cheese on top had already started to solidify. This was basically your classic nachos but with eggs on top. The problem was it wasn't scrambled eggs on top it was like an omelet with peppers in it and cheese on top just plopped on the top of some chips. My opinion is the chips should have been topped with scrambled eggs nicely broken up and peppers separate so that each chip could pick up a little bit of everything. Instead I had to try and cut the omelet like egg puck which then broke the chips underneath. Don't get me wrong this still tasted great it was just poorly executed. Maybe bad is too harsh of a word, but the breakfast nachos were defiantly disappointing.

Let's move on to the ugly. Now this wasn't my meal it was my friends and it has nothing to do with the taste of the food as I did not try it. However, he waited even longer than I did for his breakfast to come. We eventually asked about it and we were told that the kitchen staff started to eat his food because it sat there so long. What a joke. I will say the manager handled it well and took it off his bill and still brought a new one for him. So that was ugly but I applaud the manager for admitting his team’s mistake.

For my first entry in my “Food Bucket List” I wanted to talk about something I stumbled upon one night in Royal Oak, MI. Now if you do continue to read this blog you will come to realize that I love soup and appetizers. Well this takes one of my favorite soups and makes it an appetizer! I am talking about the French Onion Dumplings from Red Fox.Combining French onion soup with bite sized appetizers is a match made in heaven for me. First, the soup. I love the caramelized onions, the saltiness of the broth and of course the gruyere cheese that makes any french onion soup bite a flavorful one.Now, to make this soup a one bite bar food they play on Asian dumplings. Not sure how they do it but they somehow get all the yumminess of French onion soup inside a dumpling. Then they place the dumplings in an escargot serving plate, so each dumpling has its own slot. (Side note this may be another reason I love this dish, because I love escargot and this just reminds me of how good escargot taste.) Here comes the best part though. To truly make it french onion soup it needs the crouton and the gruyere cheese well they didn’t forget. They cover the whole top of the escargot platter with the melted cheese. To top it off the chef places a crouton on top of each dumpling and puts a toothpick through it and the dumpling. The tooth pick makes each dumpling and easy grab. Bite size bowl of soup, genius. The only problem is everyone will want to try them and they are so easy to. However, you will want to eat all of them by yourself. So you might want order doubles if you’re eating with a group of people.

foods i had to try

This page is for all the other foods I have tried. This includes at restaurants or made by other people. I’ll let you know if I love or hate each dish. I’ll probably like most of them.

Munchies 420

Author

I grew up in the Detroit Suburbs and have always loved food
and cooking. I think it stems from my Grandparents
taking me on trips around the world and making me try new things. Now I live by the motto, “try everything
once, you may just like it.” I am by no means a chef or a writer. Just a guy who likes food and getting people
to try new things.